So clearly I have a biased opinion about this subject, but in a heartfelt post, I’d like to ramble on a bit about why bodywork matters.
First, I’ll share the funny story about my first professional massage around the age of 27. I was in Huanchacho, Peru, a small beach town outside of Trujillo. My college roommate had flown down to Peru and we were staying at a cute hostel on the beach. “Let’s get massages!” she said. Turns out it was a powerhouse of a Peruvian woman who rubbed us down in a way that felt like a busy Mamacha tending to her potatoes in the high Andes.
I had a few more massages from a friend in Cusco before I decided to close my yoga studio and move to Boulder, Colorado for massage school. Halfway through my studies, I signed up for the Visionary Craniosacral Work program with Hugh Milne, having never received a craniosacral session before.
I’ll pause here and say that before my yoga studio and massage practice, I was most inspired to serve the world (I’m an Aquarius after all) by working in humanitarian aid. Those experiences are a story for another day, but I’ll say that I didn’t need much time in large or small organizations to realize that the support and impact you can make in one person’s life can have an exponentially positive, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious effect on their families, community and beyond.
Am I right or am I right that life is intense? It can be horribly beautiful and majestically terrifying all in a day’s time. It’s a delicate dance of let’s have fun but only after we unpack the ancestral trauma. It’s the constant remembering that everyone you meet is negotiating their own inner growth, so how can you provide them (and yourself) with just a little more grace? Mama Earth is furious, the politics are mad, the media needs something to say. New Age folks are selling courses on New Earths, New Paradigms, the promise of a better, wiser, more awake humanity. But here we are, waking up each day in the meat suit with our responsibilities, deadlines, expectations, dogs, children, families, and deep desire to be free, joyful, complete and at peace…
Holy cannoli.
Laying down on the massage table sounds quite nice right about now. Am I right or am I right?
I agree with the New Age woo-cifers in that we have a chance to be better, to grow and evolve. But the future New Earth they are talking about does not exist.
The only thing that is actually real is the present moment. The next thing that will be real will be the next present moment, but do we know how to be fully in this one so when the next one arrives we can actually be in that one too and not the next, next, next?
The one thing moving quicker than our fast paced lives are our minds. Our bodies are struggling to keep up.
What would it be like to slow down, to pay attention. To take a breath and feel the expansion. To exhale and let it all drop. To have the therapeutic presence of another human help you recognize your miracle of being in the flesh. To be present with your precious incarnation.
I’ve been supporting humans in their journey to deepen their awareness and connection to their bodies through yoga and bodywork for over a decade. I’m only just scraping the beginning of my career, but do you want to know one of my favorite things to witness? How a client’s eyes can change in less than an hour. And it’s not just because their body feels better, it’s because their essence is back home.
Was it the technique we did on their hip that relieved the pain? Did the body reading provide answers, explanations to their pattern? Was it my hands, their breath, the silent partners or the invitation to be here, the permission to slow down, that allowed the story to unwind and the health to surface from their inner resource? Maybe yes, maybe so, maybe it was a little bit of everything?
It is nothing short of an honor and a pleasure to be a part of this journey with you. K’intu Healing Arts is a space where you can show up disheveled, energetically dismemerbed by the bouts of life and inch by inch, together, we will find the way back to whole.
To truly believe why bodywork matters is ultimately something you will have to experience for yourself.
Portland, Maine, I’m here for you.
If this post inspires anything in your day, I hope it was a luscious pause, an invitation to pay attention to this moment.
To look upon your body and all of it’s beautiful parts. What a miracle it is to be here.
I bid you adieu with this cute duck because why not. Wasn’t the kitten the absolute cutest?